Cinnamon Gardens (37 page)

Mr. Jayaweera knocked.

“Come in,” a voice called out.

They entered. It was a studio filled with canvases and half-finished paintings. At first they could not see anyone, then he stepped out from behind an easel. The Macintosh boy.

When she had thought of him at all, Annalukshmi had imagined him as someone whose appearance was somehow noteworthy. What she had not expected was that he would look like a person she could easily pass on the street and never remember. He was of average height and build and wore a painter’s smock. The most defining feature of his face was his moustache, which drooped down on either side, giving him a sad look that was promptly dispelled when he smiled, his eyes merry. He came up to her. “At last, we meet,” he said and held his hand out. His voice had a pleasant, resonant timber.

She shook his hand, tongue-tied. She had not expected him to be so much at ease, to refer so casually to their failed meeting and, at the same time, lightly smooth over it.

He now shook hands with Nancy. “Make yourself at home,” he said, pointing to some chairs. Then he went behind a curtain and they heard him fiddling around with plates and cups.

“Annalukshmi,” Nancy whispered.

She turned to her.

“We are going,” Nancy mouthed at her.

Annalukshmi raised her eyebrows in alarm, but before she could protest, Nancy took Mr. Jayaweera by the hand and they went out of the room.

Annalukshmi looked after them in panic. She had not envisioned being left unaccompanied with the Macintosh boy.

Chandran Macintosh came out from behind the curtain with a tray. He stopped when he saw that they were alone. A look of discomfort passed over his face. Annalukshmi felt her own uneasiness increase. He gestured towards a chair and she went and sat down. He put the tea tray on the table between them and settled down in the other armchair across from her.

“What do you take in your tea?” he asked.

She told him and he prepared it for her. She noted that the cups and saucers did not match.

He offered her the tea and then sat back in his chair, his cup in his hand. The preparation of the tea had provided a rest in their awkwardness. Now an uncomfortable silence fell between them.

Annalukshmi, to avoid meeting his eyes, looked around the studio.

“Oh yes, I forgot,” Chandran Macintosh said with relief. “I am supposed to give you a tour.”

He put down his cup and stood up. She did the same, equally glad that they had found something to fill in the silence. He led her to the picture he was painting. It was nearly finished.

The first thing Annalukshmi noticed was that the three women in the picture were bare-breasted. She felt a momentary embarrassment but, knowing that art was art, she quelled this feeling and tried to look at the painting objectively. On the left side of the canvas, a woman was lying in the arms of a blue-skinned man. The other two women were on the right.

“I call it
Mrs. X At-Home
,” he said.

She looked at him, not understanding.

“You know,” he said, somewhat impatiently. “At-homes, those tea parties Cinnamon Gardens ladies have.”

Annalukshmi nodded quickly and gazed at the painting. He was a little put out that she did not understand, but honestly she could not comprehend what the painting had to do with an at-home.

“It was inspired by a conversation I heard at one of my mother’s at-homes. The ladies were discussing a servant girl who had been caught … you know … with the gardener. Their righteous indignation made me want to portray them as crows picking at the servant girl’s entrails, but that would have been too obvious. Instead, it struck me that they might, deep in themselves, envy the servant girl. So I painted it like that.”

Annalukshmi looked at the painting again, recognizing the servant girl with the gardener and the imperious-looking woman at the extreme right of the picture as Mrs. X. Then, with a start, she realized that the desolate-looking third woman was Mrs X’s image in a mirror. “It’s jolly good,” Annalukshmi cried, forgetting herself. She pointed to the two white lines, at right angles, that denoted the mirror. Chandran Macintosh smiled in pleasure. “Come, let me show you some others,” he said.

She gestured to him that she was not finished and stood back, surveying the painting. Annalukshmi’s knowledge of art was what she had been taught in school, mostly Renaissance painters. As she gazed at this painting, she felt as if she were learning a new grammar, a new language. For a change of space was indicated not by doors or walls or gates, but by a change of colour in the background; objects like the mirror were merely suggested and not fully represented.

When she was ready to move on, she turned to him and smiled. Their eyes met and held. In that instant, Annalukshmi felt her wonder and delight at the painting transfer itself onto him. A warmth broke open inside her.

Chandran Macintosh led the way to another painting and she followed.

Annalukshmi had been unsure what she thought of the Macintosh boy’s appearance, but now she knew that she found him handsome. She liked his thick, curly hair that made him look like he had just got out of bed, his rather large nose. He was not wearing a shirt under his smock and, through the white cotton, she could make out the hair on his chest, the darkness of his nipples.

They had come to another painting. One of a horse being tamed by two men. As he began to explain this to her, Annalukshmi found herself thinking about the moment when their eyes had met. She was sure that something had passed through his face that had not been there before.

The last painting he showed her was one of herself developed from the sketch he had done. When he swung it around for her to see, she drew in her breath in surprise. He stood back and looked at it critically. “Hmm,” he said. “I should have made you darker.”

He picked up a brush, dipped it in a colour on his palette, and touched up her hand until it was closer to her own colour.

“I am planning to include it in an exhibition I am having in July.” He went to a large wooden desk by the window to get something. “I’d like it very much if you would come,” he said, handing her a printed card that announced the exhibition and gave the time and place.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve never been to an exhibition before.” And she tucked the invitation away.

“Tell me, do you like what I’ve done with your portrait?” he asked.

She nodded. “Very much.”

“Then I shall give it to you, after the exhibition.”

She began to protest, but he held up his hand. “Please. It’s my way of saying I am sorry for the whole débâcle … you know.”

Chandran Macintosh had spoken with good intentions, yet his words were like cold water thrown at Annalukshmi. He was talking about what happened as if it were something far past, something long over.

The buoyancy Annalukshmi felt since that moment their eyes had met began to drain out of her.

Chandran Macintosh had become awkward as well. He gestured to her to come and have her tea.

When they were seated, cups in hand, he said, “So I am forgiven, I hope … for that.”

“Yes,” she said, not looking at him.

“It was not you,” he said. “The fact is I don’t ever intend to get married.” He waved his hand to his canvases. “I am married to this and no woman would agree to take second place to it. I hope you understand.”

Annalukshmi looked up at him quickly, then away.

“Marriage would mean family,” he said, leaning forward. “And family would mean I’d have to give up what I love and get a proper job. Some boring appointment in the civil service.”

The slightly beseeching tone in his voice made her glance at him again. She saw, much to her dismay, that he must have assumed that she had come to see him with an expectation that his ideas about marriage had changed. A terrible embarrassment took hold of her. She put her cup on the table, afraid it might rattle in her hand. She knew that she had to look up at him, had to say something to save herself from shame.

“I don’t intend to get married either,” she said. “Marriage would mean giving up my career as a teacher.”

“Good. That makes me feel better about the whole thing.”

She felt that he did not believe her, that he thought she had made it up on the spur of the moment.

He put down his cup, pushed his chair back, and stood up. She stood up too. “Thank you very much for coming.”

She bowed slightly. “Thank you for the tour of your studio. It was very informative.”

Then she turned and left.

When Annalukshmi came out into the corridor, she did not know which way to go. She could feel the tears welling up deep inside her, like the beginnings of an infection. She knew she had to leave this house before she lost control of herself. Fortunately, at that moment, Nancy and Mr. Jayaweera came down the corridor. Nancy hurried up to her with a look of concern. “What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Annalukshmi replied, keeping careful command over her voice and face. “He had to get back to his work.”

“Well, never mind, come and have some lunch with us and we’ll go back together after tea.”

Annalukshmi gave a tight smile. “I think I’ll go home.”

“But Srimani is expecting us to stay for lunch.”

“No thank you.” What did Nancy want her to do? Follow them around like an unwanted guest? Sit by herself in a room for the whole afternoon? She turned to Mr. Jayaweera. “Can you get me a rickshaw to take me back to the station?”

He nodded and went to attend to it.

Nancy walked her to the door. “Are you sure, Annalukshmi? Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” she asked.

Annalukshmi glared at her. “Why?” she snapped. “Do you want me to stay?”

Nancy raised her eyebrows to say that Annalukshmi was being unnecessarily cross.

They went out of the door in silence, and Mr. Jayaweera soon appeared with a rickshaw.

Once the rickshaw had set off, Annalukshmi leant back in the seat and allowed her tears to flow. She berated her own naïveté. How foolish she must have looked to him. How foolish she had been to imagine that because he had not run away for another woman he might be interested in her. He had asked her to visit him not because he wished to consider her as a potential wife, but so that he could apologize for disappearing as he had. She thought of the portrait of herself he had offered. She knew he was sincere, but, in her current mood, she could not stop herself from thinking, What audacity, what gall to think I needed to be appeased in that way? Who does he think he is to imagine that I would need his apologies, his gift? She tried to come up with disparaging thoughts about his paintings, but her admiration was genuine. The best she could do was comment to herself on the preponderance of nude women and wonder cattily if he had not noticed that most women did keep their clothes on.

When Annalukshmi came in through the gates of Lotus Cottage, she saw Kumudini seated on the verandah alone, her hands resting on her stomach, a smile on her face, and she felt strongly the fetters of her own narrow life. Her soul stretched tightly against the edges of her existence, longing to burst out, but it was frustratingly confined.

W
hen Balendran’s steamer reached Colombo, it was evening. Instead of going home, he decided to proceed to Brighton by taxi and face his father. Balendran felt his heart begin to beat rapidly as he saw the familiar whitewashed façade of the house.

He instructed the taxi to take him to the back. He got out of the car, told the driver to wait, and walked along the open corridor that connected the main house and the kitchen.

The door that led from the study into the vestibule was open, and Balendran went in without knocking. The Mudaliyar was sitting at his table, reading. Balendran stared at his father. Somewhere in his mind, he had expected to find the changes he felt towards his father reflected in his face, but he looked the same.

The Mudaliyar glanced up and saw Balendran. He stood quickly. They were still, looking at each other.

“We didn’t know you were coming back so soon,” the Mudaliyar said almost as an accusation.

“Yes, Appa. Death came and I saw no reason to remain.”

For a moment, the Mudaliyar’s stern expression slipped. Then he regained composure. “You should have telegraphed. What have you arranged for the coffin?”

Balendran did not meet his gaze.

“Is it still at the docks?”

Again Balendran did not answer.

The Mudaliyar came around the table. He stood in front of him. “Did the coffin not come with you? Has there been some delay?”

After a moment, Balendran shook his head.

“
When
does it come?”

Balendran’s hands had been clasped together tightly, and he now relaxed his grip. “The truth is, it does not,” he said. “The funeral took place in Bombay.”

The Mudaliyar stepped back, a stricken look on his face.

“Yes,” Balendran said, his voice gaining confidence. “The funeral has taken place according to Arul’s instructions.”